Low Costs, High Growth Coming up fast into the ranks of the top traders

While the mighty exporters of Japan and Western Europe draw most of the attention, about one-quarter of the U.S. trade deficit is the work of a pesky group of second-tier nations known as the newly industrialized countries. Once dismissed as marginal producers of chintzy clothes and toys, the NICs, which include South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil, have gone upscale, producing everything from VCRs and computers to cars and commuter planes. By importing technology and deploying armies of low-paid but often well-educated workers, the NICs have been able to undercut competitors' prices in markets all over the world....